2016 AFL Season

[aontroim abu]

Where did the match reports go to 

Aerlik's team keep getting beat, that's where lol. In fairness I too look forward to the weekly reports, id be a bit of an Eagles fan, hopefully the reports keep coming.

[Never beat the deeler]

I don't get to watch as many games as Aerlik, however I did see one live and another recorded.

Firstly the live game and Brisbane Lions (9-10-64) v Freo (23-9-147):
Bottom of the table clash as these 2 with a single win each from the first 11 rounds and Essendon will definitely make up the bottom 3, as a Lions fan I was hoping that home ground advantage and an improved effort in the last 2 weeks would see us win.
Boy was I wrong. Freo, who are decimated by injuries this year, and travelled without Pavlich, scored more than they have done in any game in 3 years. The outlook is bleak for the Lions, whereas Fremantle's list should bounce back from this year.

Geelong (15-15-105) v North Melbourne (12-2-74)
Probably the second best game of the round after the Bulldogs and Port, this was a mother of a midfield battle. Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood combined for a total of 86 disposals! On the other side Brent Harvey, who is 38 years old and is 5 short of the  most appearances of any AFL player ever, scored 4 goals in the first half. North were undone by the loss of their captain Andrew Swallow to a nasty looking concussion from a relatively innocuous challenge, Nick Dal Santo was in and out some sort of adductor tweak.
Really the cats could have been clear much earlier, but they have been kicking poorly this year - it was 5-9-63 to 8-1-49 at half time.
Beggars belief how long Danger was left without a tag.

Port Adelaide (14-13-97) v W Bulldogs (15-10-100)
Only got to see bits of this game but seems to have been a cracker. The Bulldogs briefly led by 3 goals half way through the first qtr but thereafter no team was ever more than 11 pts ahead.Bulldogs scored 3 in a row at the start of the fourth to get from 9 down to 9 up, and it was tit for tat after that with every second goal up to the final whistle.

GWS (15-15-105) vs Sydney Swans (9-9-63)
GWS are a young up and coming side - they have had a couple of blips this year and people don't know how highly to rate them. They were impressive here, in the club's 100th game and at home to the local rivals. Sydney had been building nicely up to this game and would have been expected to go top with a win here, but the Giants went ahead half way through the second quarter and never looked back.


In other games, Essendon (6-7-43) got hammered by the Hawks (23-13-151), West Coast (11-10-76) suffered a home defeat to Adelaide (15-15-105), St Kilda (17-8-110) slightly shocked a Carlton (12-6-78) side that had been exceeding everyone's expectations this year (even though they have about 5 #1 draft picks), an up-and -down Richmond (17-12-114) beat a poor Gold Coast (15-7-97) and finally on the Queen's bday long weekend in Melbourne, Melbourne Demons (16-8-104) beat Collingwood (8-10-58). Haven't seen or heard much from that game

[Club Rossa]

Thanks Deeler,will you do that for us every week?

[Never beat the deeler]

I was trying to do it at work - took about two hours of coming back to it

[TabClear]

Hawthorn beat north melbourne by 8 in a cracker on Friday night. North should have been about 30 clear at half time but missed to many and the hawks just kept chipping away with goals. Sicily scored 5 for the hawks when the big name  forwards well marshaled.  Mitchell and burgoyne very good.

A few scuffles in this game but great watching.  The hawks just know how to win tight games and North fans will be worried about how they perform against the big guns.

Boomer Harvey closing in on the all time game record

[Club Rossa]

Very bad tempered game between the Hawks and Roos.All the talk beforehand was about how North had been bullied by the Hawks in their last meeting.North should have been out of sight at quarter time but they let the Hawks hang about.They are making a habit of coming through in tight games and did so yet again last night.

[TabClear]

Hawks beat Sydney by 5 in a great gam between the top 2. Rioli with a winning kick work a couple of minutes to go. Swans will be sick.  Leaf kept changing but a couple of 50 metre penalties that talked in goals cost them in the end.

Shaun Burgoyne and Sam Mitchell excellent for hawks and frawley kept franklin scoreless. Luke Parker and Gary rowan excellent for the swans. 5 th hand this year the hawks have won by under a goal.

[Ball Hopper]

2016 Predictions before the season started

I thought it appropriate to check on the pre-season predictions of some of the expert reporters that cover the games. 

The easiest part is to determine from the predictions are the teams with no hope of making the top 8 and advancing to the finals.  The experts say Essendon, Carlton, Brisbane, St Kilda, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Adelaide Crows are the bottom seven in the competition. 

That leaves 11 teams fighting for 8 finals positions.

Top 6 seem to be separated from the rest (in order): West Coast, Hawthorn, Fremantle, Richmond, Sydney Swans and Geelong. 

That leaves five teams chasing the last two spots: Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne and Collingwood.

Regular updates will show how "expert" these predictions turn out, although they seem general enough in classifying teams into groups rather than exact finishing positions.

After 16 of the 22 games have been played, it is time to update the standings for everyone and see where the pre-season experts got it right/wrong.

Easiest way is to state number of wins for each team (4 points for a win if you want to look up the table/ladder).  Teams with same number of points are separated by % scoring difference (points scored divided by points conceded, times 100). 

Most projections say 12 wins will get a playoff spot

13 wins  Hawthorn

12  Adelaide Crows, Western Bulldogs

11  GWS Giants, Sydney Swans, West Coast Eagles, Geelong Cats

10  North Melbourne


That's the top 8 teams who would make the play-offs if current standings hold over the last 6 games.

Chasing the top 8 are:

8 wins Port Adelaide, St Kilda

7  Melbourne, Collingwood, Richmond

6  Carlton

5 Gold Coast Suns

3  Fremantle

1  Brisbane Lions, Essendon

Now to the experts predictions...two of their top 6 are well out of the race, Fremantle and Richmond.  Of their bottom 7, one (Adelaide Crows) are in 2nd place overall - the other six are outside the top 8 although St Kilda and Melbourne are not in the bottom 7 and with a run of form from here on could reach the 12 win mark.

I'm fairly sure the resident experts on this board would have as good a prediction as the experts.

Will update again in a few weeks as the season continues - the last game before playoffs is the last weekend in August.

[TabClear]

2016 Predictions before the season started

I thought it appropriate to check on the pre-season predictions of some of the expert reporters that cover the games. 

The easiest part is to determine from the predictions are the teams with no hope of making the top 8 and advancing to the finals.  The experts say Essendon, Carlton, Brisbane, St Kilda, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Adelaide Crows are the bottom seven in the competition. 

That leaves 11 teams fighting for 8 finals positions.

Top 6 seem to be separated from the rest (in order): West Coast, Hawthorn, Fremantle, Richmond, Sydney Swans and Geelong. 

That leaves five teams chasing the last two spots: Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne and Collingwood.

Regular updates will show how "expert" these predictions turn out, although they seem general enough in classifying teams into groups rather than exact finishing positions.

After 16 of the 22 games have been played, it is time to update the standings for everyone and see where the pre-season experts got it right/wrong.

Easiest way is to state number of wins for each team (4 points for a win if you want to look up the table/ladder).  Teams with same number of points are separated by % scoring difference (points scored divided by points conceded, times 100). 

Most projections say 12 wins will get a playoff spot

13 wins  Hawthorn

12  Adelaide Crows, Western Bulldogs

11  GWS Giants, Sydney Swans, West Coast Eagles, Geelong Cats

10  North Melbourne


That's the top 8 teams who would make the play-offs if current standings hold over the last 6 games.

Chasing the top 8 are:

8 wins Port Adelaide, St Kilda

7  Melbourne, Collingwood, Richmond

6  Carlton

5 Gold Coast Suns

3  Fremantle

1  Brisbane Lions, Essendon

Now to the experts predictions...two of their top 6 are well out of the race, Fremantle and Richmond.  Of their bottom 7, one (Adelaide Crows) are in 2nd place overall - the other six are outside the top 8 although St Kilda and Melbourne are not in the bottom 7 and with a run of form from here on could reach the 12 win mark.

I'm fairly sure the resident experts on this board would have as good a prediction as the experts.

Will update again in a few weeks as the season continues - the last game before playoffs is the last weekend in August.

Crowd are playing the best football of the lot.  If Dangerfield hadn't went to Geelong the flag might have been a foregone conclusion the way he is playing at the Cats!

[JimStynes]

Hayden Ballantyne looking to leave Freo Shockers and join the Eagles I hear! Great result for the Eagles today!

[aontroim abu]

Help me out here.....18 team league yet each team play a league of 22 matches?? Surely if its a 1-way league you play 17 matches?? So how do they work this out?

[Ball Hopper]

Help me out here.....18 team league yet each team play a league of 22 matches?? Surely if its a 1-way league you play 17 matches?? So how do they work this out?

See post below from earlier in the thread:

The "Regular" Season's fixtures

Back in the days of 12 teams, each team played every other team at home and away, resulting in 22 games per team before the Finals.  As expansion occurred the rules had to be changed.  As the league now has 18 teams, the question arises as to how the league HQ decide how to get 22 games for each team.  Hopefully, I can help to make it a little clearer here.
First of all, every team plays every other team once.  That covers 17 games.  To get the remaining five games the "committteeeeee" came up with the following system.

The previous season's final league position (called the "ladder" rather than "table) is divided into three sections, 1-6, 7-12 and 13-18.  A team's extra five games is determined by their position in the section.

Sides ranked 1-6 on the ladder will have a minimum of two double-meetings with other top six sides and a maximum of three meetings with sides ranked 1-6. They will have a minimum of one double-meeting of sides ranked 7-12 and a maximum of two double-meetings of sides in the 7-12 range. They will have either no double meetings or a maximum of one double meeting with a side ranked 13-18.

Sides ranked 7-12 on the ladder will have a minimum of one double-meeting with sides ranked 1-6 on the ladder and a maximum of two meetings with sides ranked 1-6. They will have a minimum of two double-meetings of sides ranked 7-12 and a maximum of three double-meetings of sides 7-12. They will have a minimum of one double-meeting of sides ranked 13-18 and a maximum of two double-meetings of sides ranked 13-18.

Sides ranked 13-18 on the ladder will have either no double meeting or a maximum of one double meeting with a side ranked 1-6. They will have a minimum of one double-meeting with sides ranked 7-12 and a maximum of two double-meetings of sides ranked 7-12. They will have a minimum of two double-meetings of sides ranked 13-18 and a maximum of three double-meetings of sides 13-18.

Essentially, they try to match teams as far as possible with those of even strength from the previous year's standings. 

The 22 rounds are played over 23 weeks, with each time having one bye week.  2016 sees a week off between round 23 and the first week of the finals as teams already qualified for the finals were resting players in the final round to the detriment of the viewing/paying public.

[TabClear]

Conor mckenna with a couple of goals at the weekend as the bombers finally got their second win.

[TabClear]

Regular season done and the Swans win the minor premiership  with Cats second.  Hawks beat Collingwood by a point to clinch 3rd. Had they lost it would have had major implications for the finals.

Two Sydney teams look very strong with west coast in a good run of form as well.  Geelong have Dangerfield and Selwood but possibly not enough scoring threat up front. Adelaide can score for fun but struggle against the big guns at time.  And the Hawks are the Hawks. Poor form recently, still heavily dependent on Sam Mitchell but just know how to win.

All in all the most open Final series in years.

[Ball Hopper]

Here's hoping I can lay out the playoff games in an easy to understand format. 

First off the Top 8 make it to the Finals.  The Top 4 need only win 2 games to get to the Grand Final, while 5-8 must win 3 games.

I find it is easier to understand if I label games A to F.

2016 Finals:

A  Sydney Swans v Greater Western Sydney (loser plays winner of Game D)
B  Geelong Cats v Hawthorn (loser plays winner of Game C)

C  West Coast Eagles v Western Bulldogs (loser eliminated)
D  Adelaide Crows v North Melbourne (loser eliminated)

E  Winner Game A plays the winner of B loser v C winner
F  Winner Game B plays the winner of A loser v D winner

G Grand Final is winner E v winner F

Is this better than quarter finals as we know them?  It rewards the top 4 it seems, which is where we might have our provincial champions in the GAA world. 


Edit:  Games A,B,C and D scheduled for Sept 8, 9 and 10.